A bishop of road safety could lead us down the right road

27 July, 2017

• WITH the Christian churches having exhausted the subjects of gender and sexuality and with transsexuality also ceasing to grip the public interest, these churches are free to explore and oversee other more important areas of modern life.

My suggestion is that they should now establish a bishop of road safety. For example, recently a lorry driver using his mobile killed four members of the same family. For this crime he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for each count of death by dangerous driving.

What is notable, however, is that these punishments are to run concurrently, which means he will serve 10 years. For reasons never fully explained, road criminals usually do only half their sentences. So this driver is likely to be freed after only five years.

Also disqualified from driving for seven years, two years after his jailing he can legally drive again. Such cheapness of human life is one of the topics that a bishop of road safety ought to examine.